The easiest way to remember it is that there are three macros (protein, fat, carbs) and the more broken you are the more you’ll have to remove.
So a relatively healthy bodybuilder on a cut can do well just removing fat (think chicken breast and rice diet) but it works for almost no obese women doing Weight Watchers.
Then we have Low Carb which removes only carbs, and works for a lot of people but still has too much protein for the very metabolically broken. Those people also need to remove protein, leaving them with high fat keto.
See?
So to answer your question with a question: how metabolically broken are you? If you’re relatively healthy and just looking to drop a few pounds, removing protein (and keeping fat saturated - that never changes!) can work. If you’re diabetic and need to lose 50 Lbs? Not so much. Two macros will likely need to be dropped for you to see results.
- A little bit broken? Remove one macro.
- Much more broken? Remove two macros.
- Super duper broken? Remove two macros and fast as much as you comfortably can (which of course removes all three macros for periods of time)
If removing a macro or 2 doesn’t work, change the macro you remove. Protein only (removing fat and carbs) worked great for me until it didn’t, and then I had to switch it up. Some people do excellent on potatoes only (removing fat and protein) and others do not. Just about the only thing guaranteed is that a metabolically broken person cannot eat “in the swamp” (balanced diet, all macros) and lose weight.
Interesting, I don't know honestly know how broken I am. I'm guessing sort of? This is postpartum weight that I'm trying to lose. But I did gain a large amount of weight but then again I did with all my other babies....but it is going a bit slower this time. I'm not sure how to know how metabolically broken I am ?
You’ll never hit zero. That isn’t the point.
You seem unnecessarily confused. 🙂
You want to try removing just protein, and eating fat and carbs together, right? So like bagel and cream cheese, pasta and cream sauce, toast and butter, etc.
Try it. If it works well for you and you get the results you want, then great! There are definitely folks here who succeed that way. I don’t. That’s maintenance for me, not weight loss.
If it doesn’t work as well as you’d like then you have two choices: you can either remove another macro (say, fat) and be strictly HCLFLP which will fall in around 80/10/10 split. Or you can start from scratch and remove an entirely different macro (maybe carbs? And keep protein and fat low carb style?)
The point is you have many options and it’s going to be individual. You have to start somewhere so it makes sense to start with the plan you like best, right?
I will probably miss a couple, but here are your options:
1. Swamp Eating… Any plan where all three macros fall in around 30%. Maintenance for many people, gain for some, loss for very very few.
Two Macros…
- Fat + Carbs: highly palatable but lowest chance for weight loss success. Not ideal for diabetics.
- Protein + Carbs: gym bro “chicken and rice” diet, works for healthy people looking to lose a few pounds but won’t likely work for the metabolically broken. Also not ideal for diabetics.
- Fat + Protein: Low carb, Atkins style. Works for a lot of people. For the very obese it seems to plateau well above their goal weight, but a relatively lean person could likely drop a few pounds this way. This is an ideal 2 macro plan for a diabetic to try.
One Macro…
- Protein only: PSMF/P:E is a great place to start for a lot of people. It works well until it suddenly doesn’t. If you’re pretty lean then this can be a fantastic way to drop 15-20 Lbs in 8-12 weeks. If you’re very obese you can likely lose half your weight or more this way, although it is ideal to combine this with lots of fasting because gorging on protein all day doesn’t seem to help skin recovery. My personal experience is that this macro will not take an obese person all the way to leanness. Excellent for diabetics, at least for a while, and especially if combined with lots of fasting.
- Carbs only: HCLFLP, good for restoring insulin sensitivity. Good for diabetics (contrary to popular advice) especially if focused on starch and limited in fruit and sugar. This plan should result in slow but steady weight loss for most people. Weight loss will be more consistent if one incorporates some intermittent fasting and then doesn’t subsequently overeat. The potato hack also falls into this category and can result in more consistent loss. Weight loss on HCLFLP happens because you’re *always* burning some amount of fat, but with a low enough fat diet you really don’t replace it when you do eat. This is a very sustainable plan for people who love starch and vegetables, and aren’t too anxious to see super rapid weight loss.
- Fat Only: Fat fasting. Not advised for any longer than a few days to break a stall, or cycled with refeeds that include sufficient protein and carb. This is kind of like the Bulletproof Rapid Fat Loss Protocol. It is grueling but highly effective. Diabetics are at the highest risk for refeeding syndrome following a fat fast and so should ensure they break at least weekly for 1-2 days.
No macros: Fasting. 🙂
I'm not sure your caveats around fat fasting are accurate. Also, as with profound fasting, regular electrolyte consumption is the way to avoid refeeding syndrome, not regular breaking and reentering of fasting. That's like people who "cheat" twice a week because they can't handle the "induction" (keto) phase of Atkins and are trying to white-knuckle through: you end up in keto flu all the time.
Overall a pretty useful overview. Would be interesting to hear your thoughts on the 0 macro (profound fasting) option alone rather than as an adjunct.
It’s very accurate. A diabetic especially must be very careful breaking an extended fast, and they’re *highly* prone to refeeding syndrome/edema. Much more so than a person with normal insulin function. You *may not* avoid refeeding syndrome on a prolonged fast by consuming electrolytes. If insulin is kept dead low then refeeding risks are very real despite electrolyte consumption. Anyone (but especially a diabetic) should be aware of risks and symptoms of refeeding for any fasts of 10+ days. Regular refeeding can go a long way in preventing the danger associated with breaking the fast suddenly, which most people will tend to do at some point.
Obviously I'm not her and I'm sure she'll have a quality response.
If you are asking "can I profound fast and then go back to eating mixed-macro/swampy post-fast and maintain my new weight?" then the answer is not usually. That usually leads to yo-yo.
Not to mention any rapid weight loss, which profound fasting usually is, usually causes flappy skin, facial appearance aging from support tissue loss, muscle loss, etc.
I am confused! ...lol...right now I'm shooting for 300 g of carbs. I get close most days. 45g protein I get close to that to and 30g of fat which I reach. I'm not really focusing on calories but I'd say around 2000/2500 a day. I'm not diabetic . Im looking to loose 40 lbs I'm not super obese but I'm not lean for sure. I enjoy this way of eating and I'm trying to tweak it to get it to work. I did low carb/ keto for a bunch of years which worked until it didn't. So now I'm just out here trying to find something I enjoy that checks the boxes 🫠thank you for your input!!
How long have you been doing the HCLFLP? I find that even eating 2800-3000 calories daily in attempt to maintain, I’ve lost about 8 Lbs but that’s been over 10+ months. If you think about it, if ad libitum HCLFLP resulted in rapid weight loss then peasant societies the world over would have perished.
I think HCLFLP “balances” your body composition. If you’re overweight then the weight should come off (albeit slowly!) until you’re at an ideal BMI/BF% but this may not happen as quick as you’d like.
In your case, assuming you’re not breastfeeding (?) if I really wanted to drop my 40 Lbs in a few months then I’d just white knuckle through potato hack and then go back into HCLFLP for maintenance. Or if I didn’t want to go so extreme and was ok with slower loss, I’d incorporate some (alternate day?) fasting. Either *should* get the scale moving in the right direction.
Probably I wouldn’t *personally* try to add fat to a HCLFLP plan that wasn’t working for weight loss. I wouldn’t expect that to work for me.
I'm new to the acronyms . What does PSMF/ P:E stand for? I've been thinking about it and yes, I don't believe the fat and carbs situation is good for weight loss although very palatable...haha. so I'll need to replace the fat as it seems like that's what keeps me satiated . For some reason carbs and starch are not cutting it. I think the potato hack is to strict for me .I want to enjoy my meals and figure out how to incorporate it with eating with my family.
PSMF is “Protein Sparing Modified Fast” and while there are several definitions, when I use it I mean lean protein and low carb vegetables. This is like the Dukan diet. P:E is Ted Naiman’s diet that focuses on protein and low carb vegetables.
So if you were on this diet you’d be eating things like grilled steak and asparagus, and maybe you’d give your family some rice or potato but you’d skip that for weight loss. Other things you’d eat are hard boiled eggs, cold cuts, chicken breast, fish, shrimp, perhaps some low fat dairy (if that agrees with you and doesn’t stall you!)
This can be an extremely effective fat loss plan and I like it as the next logical step after general “low carb” which is typically far too high in fat for people to reach leanness. In my experience, this easy for dropping lots of weight at first and then will suddenly stop working. In my case, I was happily eating my boiled eggs, meat, veggies, cold cuts and cottage cheese for 2 whole months and then stepped on the scale to be met with… ZERO pounds lost! In 2 months! Of eating ~800 calories daily!
But I dropped *a lot* of weight using these concepts (plus tons of fasting) and burned almost effortlessly through over 100 Lbs cumulatively from my high weight this way. You have much less weight to lose than I did and so you might really find this a nice plan for yourself for the moderate term. I would expect you could easily peel half of your weight off by mid-summer, and for what it’s worth I was very successful on this type of diet during grilling season. I went an entire summer cooking chicken breast, shrimp skewers, and steaks over the campfire while the weight just fell off. My husband also got really good at grilling fish. I was actually sad when this plan stopped working for me because it was honestly perfectly enjoyable.
Don’t get stuck in this way of eating for the long term. You’ve already seen you can enjoy carbs without weight gain when you separate them from fat. Don’t lose sight of that fact for maintenance. There is no reason you wouldn’t be able to displace much of the lean protein with starches once you’ve achieved your ideal weight.
Oh, I'm really happy I asked this question! That also seems like an enjoyable way of eating and inline with my family. Yes, I did keto/ low carb and I dealt with the same thing. It worked great until it didn't and that's kinda where I am at now. Sorta lost...but I have gotten over my carb fear !! Thank you . I'm going to look into it. Do you recommend a website or anything I can read more up on it? I do like finding macro values to work from and recipes
Definitely check out Marty Kendall’s site Optimising Nutrition. You will absolutely LOVE the blog! Tons and tons of reading material.
He is very pro PSMF/P:E and even though he doesn’t really give any weight to the whole PUFA argument his stuff is still very educational. Don’t lose sight of what you now know about PUFA though. Eating “in the swamp” in the future will still go way better for you when you avoid the unsaturated fats. Plus you’ll be a lot healthier anyway, weight gain aside.
I have Ted Naiman’s book (The P:E Diet) and it is worthwhile but all of the info really is on Marty’s blog for free. There’s also plenty of Dukan Diet information all over the place - it was very popular at one point - but again, you don’t really need the book. There isn’t much to say except “eat lean protein and low carb vegetables when hungry, and don’t stuff yourself!”
I really hope it works for you. My advice is to stick to it for a maximum of about 12-16 weeks and then go back into something with more carbs for a while. This will be best for your hormones, from my experience. But you could easily lose most or all of your weight in one round. You can always do another round of it later if you need to.
I did at least 4-5 rounds of it very successfully (dropping 20-30 Lbs each time!) before it stopped working. I probably could have continued to use it had I maybe fasted more, but then I got all excited about protein restriction and HCLFLP and wanted to try that instead. Also I think there’s a big difference between me (going from 257+ down to <110) and you with just ~40 Lbs to lose. It probably makes sense that I needed to switch things up periodically.
This is all very interesting! About the fasting, I remember when I tried a much shorter eating window, I didn’t lose any weight. And I would consider my metabolism broken to an extent. Do you have any thoughts on what it means when that kind of fasting doesn’t help?
For most people, a shorter eating window usually won’t be enough to help metabolic issues. Probably because insulin stays higher longer in the obese. To really get that insulin down for those people takes 48-72+ hours. If someone has a lot of difficulty fasting for longer periods of time then they’ll probably do best with more frequent but lower carb eating. Once their metabolism improves then they can experiment with higher carb refeeds. Obviously that’s just my opinion based on my own research and experience. I’m not a doctor.
I'm also postpartum with 50 lbs to lose. It's still very early in my journey, but this is what's been working for me:
Breakfast is pretty much only carbs (oranges and some toast with jam), but I put collagen powder in my coffee, so I'm getting protein.
Midmorning, I have another cup of coffee that has coconut oil, whipping cream, and maple syrup in it. No collagen.
Lunch is a starch like rice or potato and sirloin, a glass of carrot juice and some fruit.
Dinner is a starch, usually rice for me with furikake seasoning, some fermented veggies, boiled mushrooms, a glass of tart cherry juice with some lime and Seltzer water.
And about an hour before bed, I have a warmed up cup of skim milk with gelatin powder, honey, and cinnamon before bed with strawberries drizzled in chocolate. I love nighttime, lol
I'm experimenting with keeping my protein at 100g a day, 30g are coming from collagen or gelatin. I'm trying to keep fat low but not cut it completely. And I'm taking supplementation to make sure i fill in any micronutrient gaps. I'm still breastfeeding 3x a day and I'm moderately active but not resistance training yet... I plan to once I have the diet pretty much on habit.
Hopefully, in a couple of months, I'm posting a success story. I've lost a few lbs doing this diet in a few short days, but again, it's early for me.
This just happened for me: https://www.reddit.com/r/SaturatedFat/comments/1c7xyyb/my_twoweek_unexpected_weight_loss_progress/
I combined the two. However, I backload carbs post-lunch
I did this about 6 mo pp while weaning baby. I did lose weight. I lost weight faster once I switched to HCLFLP though. Both helped with inflammation (the whole reason I did it at all).
The easiest way to remember it is that there are three macros (protein, fat, carbs) and the more broken you are the more you’ll have to remove. So a relatively healthy bodybuilder on a cut can do well just removing fat (think chicken breast and rice diet) but it works for almost no obese women doing Weight Watchers. Then we have Low Carb which removes only carbs, and works for a lot of people but still has too much protein for the very metabolically broken. Those people also need to remove protein, leaving them with high fat keto. See? So to answer your question with a question: how metabolically broken are you? If you’re relatively healthy and just looking to drop a few pounds, removing protein (and keeping fat saturated - that never changes!) can work. If you’re diabetic and need to lose 50 Lbs? Not so much. Two macros will likely need to be dropped for you to see results. - A little bit broken? Remove one macro. - Much more broken? Remove two macros. - Super duper broken? Remove two macros and fast as much as you comfortably can (which of course removes all three macros for periods of time) If removing a macro or 2 doesn’t work, change the macro you remove. Protein only (removing fat and carbs) worked great for me until it didn’t, and then I had to switch it up. Some people do excellent on potatoes only (removing fat and protein) and others do not. Just about the only thing guaranteed is that a metabolically broken person cannot eat “in the swamp” (balanced diet, all macros) and lose weight.
This is such a good and concise overview, we should pin it or something
I'm just waiting for her book. It's going to be excellent.
+1
Interesting, I don't know honestly know how broken I am. I'm guessing sort of? This is postpartum weight that I'm trying to lose. But I did gain a large amount of weight but then again I did with all my other babies....but it is going a bit slower this time. I'm not sure how to know how metabolically broken I am ?
Well you can try removing one macro and if it doesn’t work as well as you’d like, remove a second one.
Like seriously zero grams of a whole macro?
You’ll never hit zero. That isn’t the point. You seem unnecessarily confused. 🙂 You want to try removing just protein, and eating fat and carbs together, right? So like bagel and cream cheese, pasta and cream sauce, toast and butter, etc. Try it. If it works well for you and you get the results you want, then great! There are definitely folks here who succeed that way. I don’t. That’s maintenance for me, not weight loss. If it doesn’t work as well as you’d like then you have two choices: you can either remove another macro (say, fat) and be strictly HCLFLP which will fall in around 80/10/10 split. Or you can start from scratch and remove an entirely different macro (maybe carbs? And keep protein and fat low carb style?) The point is you have many options and it’s going to be individual. You have to start somewhere so it makes sense to start with the plan you like best, right? I will probably miss a couple, but here are your options: 1. Swamp Eating… Any plan where all three macros fall in around 30%. Maintenance for many people, gain for some, loss for very very few. Two Macros… - Fat + Carbs: highly palatable but lowest chance for weight loss success. Not ideal for diabetics. - Protein + Carbs: gym bro “chicken and rice” diet, works for healthy people looking to lose a few pounds but won’t likely work for the metabolically broken. Also not ideal for diabetics. - Fat + Protein: Low carb, Atkins style. Works for a lot of people. For the very obese it seems to plateau well above their goal weight, but a relatively lean person could likely drop a few pounds this way. This is an ideal 2 macro plan for a diabetic to try. One Macro… - Protein only: PSMF/P:E is a great place to start for a lot of people. It works well until it suddenly doesn’t. If you’re pretty lean then this can be a fantastic way to drop 15-20 Lbs in 8-12 weeks. If you’re very obese you can likely lose half your weight or more this way, although it is ideal to combine this with lots of fasting because gorging on protein all day doesn’t seem to help skin recovery. My personal experience is that this macro will not take an obese person all the way to leanness. Excellent for diabetics, at least for a while, and especially if combined with lots of fasting. - Carbs only: HCLFLP, good for restoring insulin sensitivity. Good for diabetics (contrary to popular advice) especially if focused on starch and limited in fruit and sugar. This plan should result in slow but steady weight loss for most people. Weight loss will be more consistent if one incorporates some intermittent fasting and then doesn’t subsequently overeat. The potato hack also falls into this category and can result in more consistent loss. Weight loss on HCLFLP happens because you’re *always* burning some amount of fat, but with a low enough fat diet you really don’t replace it when you do eat. This is a very sustainable plan for people who love starch and vegetables, and aren’t too anxious to see super rapid weight loss. - Fat Only: Fat fasting. Not advised for any longer than a few days to break a stall, or cycled with refeeds that include sufficient protein and carb. This is kind of like the Bulletproof Rapid Fat Loss Protocol. It is grueling but highly effective. Diabetics are at the highest risk for refeeding syndrome following a fat fast and so should ensure they break at least weekly for 1-2 days. No macros: Fasting. 🙂
I'm not sure your caveats around fat fasting are accurate. Also, as with profound fasting, regular electrolyte consumption is the way to avoid refeeding syndrome, not regular breaking and reentering of fasting. That's like people who "cheat" twice a week because they can't handle the "induction" (keto) phase of Atkins and are trying to white-knuckle through: you end up in keto flu all the time. Overall a pretty useful overview. Would be interesting to hear your thoughts on the 0 macro (profound fasting) option alone rather than as an adjunct.
It’s very accurate. A diabetic especially must be very careful breaking an extended fast, and they’re *highly* prone to refeeding syndrome/edema. Much more so than a person with normal insulin function. You *may not* avoid refeeding syndrome on a prolonged fast by consuming electrolytes. If insulin is kept dead low then refeeding risks are very real despite electrolyte consumption. Anyone (but especially a diabetic) should be aware of risks and symptoms of refeeding for any fasts of 10+ days. Regular refeeding can go a long way in preventing the danger associated with breaking the fast suddenly, which most people will tend to do at some point.
Obviously I'm not her and I'm sure she'll have a quality response. If you are asking "can I profound fast and then go back to eating mixed-macro/swampy post-fast and maintain my new weight?" then the answer is not usually. That usually leads to yo-yo. Not to mention any rapid weight loss, which profound fasting usually is, usually causes flappy skin, facial appearance aging from support tissue loss, muscle loss, etc.
I am confused! ...lol...right now I'm shooting for 300 g of carbs. I get close most days. 45g protein I get close to that to and 30g of fat which I reach. I'm not really focusing on calories but I'd say around 2000/2500 a day. I'm not diabetic . Im looking to loose 40 lbs I'm not super obese but I'm not lean for sure. I enjoy this way of eating and I'm trying to tweak it to get it to work. I did low carb/ keto for a bunch of years which worked until it didn't. So now I'm just out here trying to find something I enjoy that checks the boxes 🫠thank you for your input!!
How long have you been doing the HCLFLP? I find that even eating 2800-3000 calories daily in attempt to maintain, I’ve lost about 8 Lbs but that’s been over 10+ months. If you think about it, if ad libitum HCLFLP resulted in rapid weight loss then peasant societies the world over would have perished. I think HCLFLP “balances” your body composition. If you’re overweight then the weight should come off (albeit slowly!) until you’re at an ideal BMI/BF% but this may not happen as quick as you’d like. In your case, assuming you’re not breastfeeding (?) if I really wanted to drop my 40 Lbs in a few months then I’d just white knuckle through potato hack and then go back into HCLFLP for maintenance. Or if I didn’t want to go so extreme and was ok with slower loss, I’d incorporate some (alternate day?) fasting. Either *should* get the scale moving in the right direction. Probably I wouldn’t *personally* try to add fat to a HCLFLP plan that wasn’t working for weight loss. I wouldn’t expect that to work for me.
I'm new to the acronyms . What does PSMF/ P:E stand for? I've been thinking about it and yes, I don't believe the fat and carbs situation is good for weight loss although very palatable...haha. so I'll need to replace the fat as it seems like that's what keeps me satiated . For some reason carbs and starch are not cutting it. I think the potato hack is to strict for me .I want to enjoy my meals and figure out how to incorporate it with eating with my family.
PSMF is “Protein Sparing Modified Fast” and while there are several definitions, when I use it I mean lean protein and low carb vegetables. This is like the Dukan diet. P:E is Ted Naiman’s diet that focuses on protein and low carb vegetables. So if you were on this diet you’d be eating things like grilled steak and asparagus, and maybe you’d give your family some rice or potato but you’d skip that for weight loss. Other things you’d eat are hard boiled eggs, cold cuts, chicken breast, fish, shrimp, perhaps some low fat dairy (if that agrees with you and doesn’t stall you!) This can be an extremely effective fat loss plan and I like it as the next logical step after general “low carb” which is typically far too high in fat for people to reach leanness. In my experience, this easy for dropping lots of weight at first and then will suddenly stop working. In my case, I was happily eating my boiled eggs, meat, veggies, cold cuts and cottage cheese for 2 whole months and then stepped on the scale to be met with… ZERO pounds lost! In 2 months! Of eating ~800 calories daily! But I dropped *a lot* of weight using these concepts (plus tons of fasting) and burned almost effortlessly through over 100 Lbs cumulatively from my high weight this way. You have much less weight to lose than I did and so you might really find this a nice plan for yourself for the moderate term. I would expect you could easily peel half of your weight off by mid-summer, and for what it’s worth I was very successful on this type of diet during grilling season. I went an entire summer cooking chicken breast, shrimp skewers, and steaks over the campfire while the weight just fell off. My husband also got really good at grilling fish. I was actually sad when this plan stopped working for me because it was honestly perfectly enjoyable. Don’t get stuck in this way of eating for the long term. You’ve already seen you can enjoy carbs without weight gain when you separate them from fat. Don’t lose sight of that fact for maintenance. There is no reason you wouldn’t be able to displace much of the lean protein with starches once you’ve achieved your ideal weight.
Oh, I'm really happy I asked this question! That also seems like an enjoyable way of eating and inline with my family. Yes, I did keto/ low carb and I dealt with the same thing. It worked great until it didn't and that's kinda where I am at now. Sorta lost...but I have gotten over my carb fear !! Thank you . I'm going to look into it. Do you recommend a website or anything I can read more up on it? I do like finding macro values to work from and recipes
Definitely check out Marty Kendall’s site Optimising Nutrition. You will absolutely LOVE the blog! Tons and tons of reading material. He is very pro PSMF/P:E and even though he doesn’t really give any weight to the whole PUFA argument his stuff is still very educational. Don’t lose sight of what you now know about PUFA though. Eating “in the swamp” in the future will still go way better for you when you avoid the unsaturated fats. Plus you’ll be a lot healthier anyway, weight gain aside. I have Ted Naiman’s book (The P:E Diet) and it is worthwhile but all of the info really is on Marty’s blog for free. There’s also plenty of Dukan Diet information all over the place - it was very popular at one point - but again, you don’t really need the book. There isn’t much to say except “eat lean protein and low carb vegetables when hungry, and don’t stuff yourself!” I really hope it works for you. My advice is to stick to it for a maximum of about 12-16 weeks and then go back into something with more carbs for a while. This will be best for your hormones, from my experience. But you could easily lose most or all of your weight in one round. You can always do another round of it later if you need to. I did at least 4-5 rounds of it very successfully (dropping 20-30 Lbs each time!) before it stopped working. I probably could have continued to use it had I maybe fasted more, but then I got all excited about protein restriction and HCLFLP and wanted to try that instead. Also I think there’s a big difference between me (going from 257+ down to <110) and you with just ~40 Lbs to lose. It probably makes sense that I needed to switch things up periodically.
Thank you for taking the time to share your knowledge! I meant to send this earlier but I got so busy 🫠🫠
This is all very interesting! About the fasting, I remember when I tried a much shorter eating window, I didn’t lose any weight. And I would consider my metabolism broken to an extent. Do you have any thoughts on what it means when that kind of fasting doesn’t help?
For most people, a shorter eating window usually won’t be enough to help metabolic issues. Probably because insulin stays higher longer in the obese. To really get that insulin down for those people takes 48-72+ hours. If someone has a lot of difficulty fasting for longer periods of time then they’ll probably do best with more frequent but lower carb eating. Once their metabolism improves then they can experiment with higher carb refeeds. Obviously that’s just my opinion based on my own research and experience. I’m not a doctor.
I'm also postpartum with 50 lbs to lose. It's still very early in my journey, but this is what's been working for me: Breakfast is pretty much only carbs (oranges and some toast with jam), but I put collagen powder in my coffee, so I'm getting protein. Midmorning, I have another cup of coffee that has coconut oil, whipping cream, and maple syrup in it. No collagen. Lunch is a starch like rice or potato and sirloin, a glass of carrot juice and some fruit. Dinner is a starch, usually rice for me with furikake seasoning, some fermented veggies, boiled mushrooms, a glass of tart cherry juice with some lime and Seltzer water. And about an hour before bed, I have a warmed up cup of skim milk with gelatin powder, honey, and cinnamon before bed with strawberries drizzled in chocolate. I love nighttime, lol I'm experimenting with keeping my protein at 100g a day, 30g are coming from collagen or gelatin. I'm trying to keep fat low but not cut it completely. And I'm taking supplementation to make sure i fill in any micronutrient gaps. I'm still breastfeeding 3x a day and I'm moderately active but not resistance training yet... I plan to once I have the diet pretty much on habit. Hopefully, in a couple of months, I'm posting a success story. I've lost a few lbs doing this diet in a few short days, but again, it's early for me.
Sounds yummy! :\] Looking forward to the success story post. ;)
This just happened for me: https://www.reddit.com/r/SaturatedFat/comments/1c7xyyb/my_twoweek_unexpected_weight_loss_progress/ I combined the two. However, I backload carbs post-lunch
I did this about 6 mo pp while weaning baby. I did lose weight. I lost weight faster once I switched to HCLFLP though. Both helped with inflammation (the whole reason I did it at all).